Currently, it is costly to develop and manufacture robotic devices. Each robotic device requires costly control electronics and sensors in order to operate within its environment. In addition, software has to be developed to take input from the sensors and drive the control electronics for the robotic device. This is in addition to the cost of developing device specific functionalities for the robotic device's intended use. For example, with a robotic cleaning device, these device specific functionalities would be the specific cleaning mechanism, a power supply and a mobile platform that is optimized for moving the robotic cleaning mechanism around. The control electronics, sensors and software drive up the cost of the robotic devices for consumers and/or commercial customers beyond the cost of the device specific functionalities.
In addition, costs are driven up further because consumers and/or commercial customers have to purchase a separate robotic device for each type of task they would like the robot to perform, and each of these robots carries with it its own expensive control electronics and sensors. While the device specific functionality of each robotic device may provide unique value and capabilities, such as when purchasing one robot that vacuums and a different robot that mops the floor, the expensive control electronics and sensors may provide redundant functions across the different robotic products. The consumers and/or commercial customers end up bearing significant extra costs for this redundancy as they purchase multiple robotic products.
Further, if a robot malfunctions, the replacement cost is also high because of the expensive control electronics and sensors must be replaced with the entire unit. In addition, most robotic devices are not easily upgraded without complete replacement of the entire unit, as the expensive components and/or circuit boards are not modular to the robotic device. This may also prevent new features and behaviors from being added to the robotic devices. This may also make support costs higher by having to provide technical support and customer service for a broad range of non-standard devices.
Manufacturers and software developers also have high costs because there is no common platform and architecture for manufactures to leverage for higher scale production, nor for which programmers can write applications and behaviors leveraged across the development of multiple devices. For each different type of device, manufacturers have to develop new control electronics and software developers have to write custom software to operate with the control electronics. Further, if a third party wants to develop a new peripheral or component, the third party has to also write additional software and/or create new control electronics to interface the robot device with the new peripheral or component.
Consumers and commercial customers may also experience limited benefits for the cost incurred in this model, as technology advances in the control electronics, sensors and software that enhance the performance and capabilities of one line of products may not be easily transferred to another line of products. Furthermore, information and learning gathered at the local level by a robotic device that is used to optimized its performance, such as a robotic vacuum cleaner learning over time the most efficient and complete method for covering an consumer's home, may not be easily shared with different floor cleaning robots (e.g., a robotic mopping device) to improve the performance of all of the consumer's devices.
Accordingly, there is a need for creating a common platform and architecture that can be implemented across multiple robotic devices to enable modularity in functions, where key elements of the robotic control electronics, sensors and software functions are abstracted from the device specific functions and mechanisms.